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There's not a whole lot to report on our journey east from southern Albania to Istanbul - we travelled to Iaoninna in North-western Greece, through Thessaloniki, Greece's second city, and on to Plovdiv in southern Bulgaria.

Heading east

Conor_purcell
2005-11-18 15:46:38

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There's not a whole lot to report on our journey east from southern Albania to Istanbul - we travelled to Iaoninna in North-western Greece, through Thessaloniki, Greece's second city, and on to Plovdiv in southern Bulgaria.

The route can only be characterised by a series of mishaps on my part. First, I forgot about the extra hour Greece has on Albania, and so, we missed our early bus to Thessaloniki, having already bought the tickets. We had spent just the one night in Iaoninna - an average sized city on a lake with a nice Old Town. Not much else to say about it really.

On arrival in Thessaloniki, we got the last room in the city's only cheap hotel. It was here I discovered I'd left my dirty laundry bag back in Iaoninna - almost half my wardrobe! So, a shopping spree was in order, and I managed to replace the lost items with some decent new clobber at knock-down prices. As for Thessaloniki, it's just another big city - we spent two nights, as we had been travelling almost every day since Ohrid, and needed a break. But we were anxious to get on to Istanbul, so we left on the Sunday, bound for Bulgaira.

Our journey to Plovdiv was not as straight-forward as we'd hoped. Flash floods across Bulgaria and Romania meant sections of the Sofia/Plovdiv line were closed, and we had to take the bus from Sofia almost the whole way to Plovdiv. We spent just one night here - I'm getting a bit bored with 'nice Old Towns', and Plovdiv's one is real nice. Actually, the Roman ruins didn't impress me at all, and I wondered about the Lonely Planets introduction to the city - "Super Plovdiv!"

We were catching the night bus to Istanbul, so we spent that afternoon shopping (again...) for some 'appropriate attire' for Charlene for Turkey. But I was still shaken after that morning's incident........

It started with a knock on our apartment door. Our, shall we say, bouncy landlady waking us up. Not in the mood to chat, I ran into the bathroom for a shower, casually locking the door behind. Having showered, and certain she was gone, I went over to the door to let myself out. The key wouldn't turn.

You're having a laugh.

"Eh, Charlene, the key won't turn!"

What followed was a half hour of increasing panic on my part. From my position inside the bathroom door, I could here the various people coming up the stairs to try their hand at turning the key, which I had slid under the door. Their failed attempts were always followed by 'hold on and I'll get......', and my mood wasn't helped by my girlfriend's 'helpful' reassurances.

"Are you ok in there?"

"Are you for real? Of course I'm not f@#king ok in here. Would you be f@#king ok in here? What's going on out there? Where's the lady?"

Just as I was getting ready to charge the door, out of nowhere came a simple little click, and I was free! As I walked out, completely naked but for the face towel I had run in with, my saviour, a local handyman, warned me 'You shouldn't lock this. We have big problem with this.'

Yeah, no shit Sherlock. Anyway, the episode finished after a half hour, I was still getting over it when I realised more shopping was on the cards. I thought this was supposed to be a holiday! As the day wore on though, and our bus journey approached, my mood improved. And how could it not? It was a Monday, and I wasn't in work! The Russian sailors were safe! The new football season had started the previous day! And best of all, our 4 weeks throught the Balkans was over! We were off to Istanbul that night, Asia for the first time!